minority influence and social change

• what is minority influence?

  minority influences the majority to change their private and public attitudes and behaviour
• Who did a study into minority influence?

  Moscovici
• Moscovici procedure:

  female PTPS recruited and placed into groups of 6, 4 genuine PTPS, 2 confederates

  they were shown 36 slides with varying shades of blue and asked to name the colour

  Consistent condition - confederates consistently gave the wrong answer and said green

  Inconsistent condition - confederates gave the wrong answer in 24 out of 36 slides

  control - six genuine PTPS
• Moscovici findings:

  influenced by minority view when consistent - 8.42%

  influenced less by minority view when inconsistent - 1.25%

  control - 0.25% wrong answers (unambiguous task)
• Moscovici conclusions:

  minority influence happens when there is consistency, the more consistent, the larger the effect
• What behavioural characteristics help with minority influence?

  commitment, consistency, flexibility
• commitment:

  a person has to show persistence and determination to show their passion
• consistency:

  a person has to express the same unwavering ideas over a long period of time
• flexibility:

  a person has to be non-dogmatic and willing to listen to other people's ideas
• evidence for flexibility:

  Nemeth - stimulated jury situation where they had to decide whether to give compensation to someone in a ski accident

  PTPS more influenced by someone who showed willingness to compromise
• process of social change:

  attention, deeper processing, snowball effect, social-crypto amnesia
• attention -

  attention must be drawn to an issue through protests

  it helps if a person is consistent, flexible, and committed

  The augmentation principle shows that someone needs to be doing this out of personal sacrifice with no self-gain
• deeper processing -

  the minority causes the majority to pay more attention to the issue and people start to internalise with the ideas
• snowball effect -

  it reaches a tipping point where the minority shifts to majority

  those who don't agree with the ideas may show NSI and conform to fit in
• social-crypto amnesia -

  people remember change has taken place but don't directly remember the process of it

  people now internalise the ideas as they publicly and privately agree with them
• examples of social change

  women's rights

  LGBTQIA

  mental health

  black lives matter
• what locus of control do minority members need?

  internal, as they need the self-belief that they have the responsibility to bring change